deuces are wild
by Lizzy Rebel
Summary: you know that awkward moment when you realize the girl you shot in the head didn't actually die? Benny sure does. f!Courier/Benny
1. please don't talk about me when I'm gone

standard disclaimer applies

my first Fallout fic in any capacity. Born from my love of Benny and Frank Sinatra and, of course, New Vegas. This was inspired by a prompt on the kink meme on livejournal that got completely out of control. The story primarily follows the events once the courier reaches the Strip, with some elements changed. You'll see what I mean. Also liberties were taken with how tribes in the Fallout world work. I tried to keep them as canon as possible, especially with the massive mythology in the California area.

also, this story is rated M for a reason. There is graphic sex. If that isn't something you want to read I advise you to precede with caution. This does come from the kink meme, okay?

critique and reviews are appreciated and welcome.

* * *

**deuces are wild**

_please don't talk about me when I'm gone,__  
oh, honey though our friendship ceases, from now on;  
and, listen, if you can't say anything real nice,  
it's better not to talk at all, is my advice.  
_-Frank Sinatra

**i: please don't talk about me when I'm gone**

Even from miles away, the New Vegas Strip was like a fucking star shining out against the dark night sky. And even from miles away, he knew what was going on there, right at this moment. Whores at Gomorrah, hoity-toity snobbery at the Ultra Lux, a swinging party at the Tops, and the Lucky 38 watching over it all—unfeeling and unmoving.

Yeah, and that's where he ought to be, Benny Gecko thought, not in this hellhole of a town just on the fringes of NCR control watching some Great Khan bindle punks dig a hole six-feet deep. How long had it been since he'd been farther than North Vegas? Too fucking long, maybe, but inhaling the crisp sent of natural air he decided not long enough.

The Platinum Chip felt heavier than it should have in the palm of his hand, but Benny knew it was just his imagination acting up again. It was flimsy little thing—poor Courier had probably thought she was running the job for some eccentric rich bitch up in New Vegas. Yeah, Benny bet she'd had no clue what she'd been handed when she'd taken her latest dispatch. Real shame, too.

It's been too easy to find her. A body could pick this broad out of a crowd, he thought. Not even from her bright red hair, falling to her neck in a blunt, straight line. Naw, didn't even need that. Her eyes. So amber they looked golden. Cat eyes, he thought the first time he'd caught sight of her. Fucking cat eyes.

Right now she slept peaceful in the dirt. She'd passed out easy enough once they'd gotten the drop on her outside of Goodsprings, making her way to Primm and then on to Vegas. She'd been carrying a hunting rifle and a combat knife tucked into her boot. Both had gotten dropped to the wayside on their way up to the cemetery.

"There's an old saying palies that I think applies right now," he said, mostly to himself. The other two weren't really paying attention. He made a sweeping motion to the woman unconscious on the ground. "Water, water everywhere and not a damn drop to drink."

"What the hell does that even mean?" snapped Jessup's muscle.

Benny shrugged. "Read it somewhere. Some crazy cat kills his good luck charm and acts all surprised when everything goes to shit."

Muscles gave him a blank look. Benny figured he probably lost him at 'read.'

"And there were zombies, I think. Or Ghouls, who can tell the fucking difference most days?" Benny laughed. "But yeah, look, it's water everyone and we can't have one fucking sip. It's a real shame, you know?" From the look on the Khan's face he still didn't get it, not that Benny is terribly surprised. Great Khans, right?

"Just finish her now," Jessup snapped as he hefted dirt over his left shoulder. "Before she wakes up."

"Don't be a bunny, friend," Benny suggested, blowing a stream of smoke in his direction. Maybe it'd be easier, offing her while she slept, but it was a matter of principals. The Chairmen had them, which meant Benny had them. If you were looking to pop someone off, ain't no skin off their noses. Things had to be done, but make sure you were looking them in the face when you did it. Anything less made you a square.

Jessup starting griping again and Benny thought—_fucking Khans_. He hadn't wanted to work with them in the first place. It was a tribe of wet rags—it was always Bitter Springs this and Bitter Springs that and fucking NCR over there. How'd the Khans put up with themselves, six days out of seven, with all the whining?

"She's waking up over there," Jessup said suddenly.

And oh _hallelujah_ indeed she was. Those cat eyes were blinking rapidly, adjusting to the darkness of the night, her wrists already twisting to break free of their bonds. Dame was tough, tougher than she looked but not tough enough to beat the odds stacked up against her.

Odds like his good ol' Maria in his coat pocket.

The girl pushed herself into a half-kneeling position, angry red hair flopping over her sweaty brow. There was panic in her eyes, in the way her lips pressed tightly together, but anger was there too and calm determination. Had to admire a girl who could keep her shit together, especially when her shit was this.

Real shame about having to cap such a pretty face, but well—New Vegas was calling. He was going to do her a favor, though, since she wasn't more than a pawn between him and House. One quick, clean bullet to the forehead. Wouldn't mess up her face too much. She could still die pretty.

"From where you're kneeling, this must seem like an 18 karat run of bad luck," he murmured to her, Maria already in his hands, a familiar weight of tenderly crafted steel and gold. Maria—the only broad who'd never let him down. "The truth is—the game was rigged from the start."

And luck, Benny thought just before pulling the trigger, is definitely not a lady tonight.

War. War never changes.  
-

Her mama always said one day she was going to get in over her head, but her mama had tended to say those things so jacked on drugs that she didn't know what time of day it was or her own name and so she'd never put much substance into the words.

But damn if the woman hadn't turned out right after all.

But mama, she thought, I'm about to surface. There was just one more thing she had to do, and it was standing across the casino in a black and white checkered suit winking as one of his patrons sashayed by.

Sigrun breathed through her nose, a calming exercise she'd learned from her earliest days with her tribe. Kendo had always told her a panicked hunter was a dead hunter and little girl, you don't want to be dead. So in with the air through her nose.

'Course, all the breathing through the nose in the world hadn't helped that night in Goodsprings Cemetery. But nothing would have helped that night, except her not being there.

Unconsciously, her hand moved to the edge of her forehead, hidden by the sweep of her hair. Doc Mitchell had done some damn fine work, but she could still feel the dip of her bone from where the bullet had hit. Clean through and through, the Doc had said, a damn miracle. It didn't feel like a damn miracle. Not when there were pieces of her own face she didn't recognize. The Doc had kept her mostly the same, pieced her back into something people who'd known her would recognize, but there was enough of someone new to frighten her. The only thing that had kept her going was her wild goose chase after a man whose name she hadn't known for nearly a month after he'd left her for dead.

She'd gotten his name in Novac. Benny Gecko, Mr. Head of the Tops himself. She'd known before he must've been from the Strip. He was too fancy for the trail dust and road dirt that had been Goodsprings. He'd had the Strip all over him—glitz and glamour hiding a very real, very deadly lethality. But everyone knew that was just how Vegas was. The raider families turned gold by the silent benefactor Mr. House.

Mr. House, who wanted to meet with her, according to Victor. But first things first. And, hell, did she even want to get messed up in this? Did she even _want_ that damn poker chip back? No, not really. But she did want answers. Sigrun didn't like not knowing things, and she definitely didn't like not knowing why she had wound up six-feet deep with a hole in her previously hole-less head. And more than that, she wanted justice.

Justice. It'd gotten her into trouble more than once. It had gotten her her name and, according to Kendo when he'd given it to her, it would get her killed.

Almost, she thought with a quirk of her lips, but not quite. Or not yet.

She had a knife hidden behind the heavy belts around her waist. It wouldn't do shit against the Chairmen who were dressed up like they were going to war, but she wasn't looking to do shit. She just wanted answers and to be on her way. It was a hell of a thing, traipsing across the freaking Mojave for a contrived notion of justice, but she'd been doing it since she was fourteen.

She'd left Boone outside with ED-E, which according to Boone was just about the dumbest fuck idea she'd ever had. No, Sigrun had argued, picking up a harmless poker chip on its merry way to the Strip had been the dumbest fuck idea she'd ever had. But maybe leaving Boone behind had been a close second.

Parked at the nearest empty poker table, whisky bottle dangling from two fingers, she watched him. With a gun in her face and the end of her life on the horizon, she hadn't really paid attention to him. He was tallish, though not like Boone tall. Just enough so you noticed him, but not enough so you couldn't stop noticing him. And, unlike Boone, he was all lean, hard angles—even his face was a bunch of contrasting slopes. An attractive package you bet, but one couldn't really miss all his sharp edges, no matter how much effort he'd seemed to put into covering them. For all his spit and shine, he looked so tribal. Dark eyes and dark hair and a sharp face, serious mouth that smiled like something sharp and pointy. Sigrun knew tribal when she saw it.

She cocked her head to the side and waited. Sigrun, nine times out of ten, tended to go the hard way rather than the easy way but this time she would wait. His guards had big guns and Benny would probably shoot on sight.

Some jazzy guy was singing about a blue moon lowly over the speakers. Her eyes drifted closed as she listened, swaying slightly. Probably shouldn't have had that third gulp of whisky, she thought and took another.

If mama could see her now, Sigrun thought. Then frowned. God, she didn't like thinking about her mother. At all. She'd shut Doc Mitchell down right quick when the questions had gone in that direction. Next of kin? Not hardly, though the old man in New Reno might be convinced to come pick her up if she was really, really, really dead. Yeah, justice tended to get her in a lot of trouble. Like that early morning when she'd stormed into Alpha's house with nothing but a sharp knife and her rage.

She'd taken off one finger and taken out one eye before Alpha had started throwing his weight around. That had been justice. Damn, idiotic justice and because of it she'd never be able to go back to the only home she'd ever known.

Alcohol makes you whiny, she told herself and pushed the bottle away. It's why you don't drink, smart girl. Well, that and her mama had always been drinking. Drugs and liquor and her baby girl, her most precious things.

Ah hell mama, Sigrun thought. For no good reason.

It was time to put a halt on those rather depressing memories and lo and behold, the instrument of her distraction had arrived. She lifted her head, swept angry, red hair out of her eyes and meet Benny's from across the room.

She lifted her whisky bottle toward him with a half-smile. What was it they were always saying in this place? Oh yeah. _Ring-a-ding.  
- _

Holy Chee-rist.

Red Hair.

Gold Eyes.

And definitely not dead.

How the fuck does that even happen, Benny wondered. Because really. How the fuck. The broad should have been resting in the ground down in Goodsprings, right where he'd left her pretty ass. She should not be in his joint sitting as fancy as you please at one of his poker tables.

She lifted a whisky bottle and tipped it toward him in a toast. Her legs swung back and forth on the stool. She was a hell of a lot smaller than she had first appeared. Tiny; she was fucking tiny and fucking alive—had he already mentioned that?

His brain was fried. Absolutely fried. How the hell was this his life?

He stared at her, mouth hanging open like a fish. She made a come hither motion. Oh yeah, right. Benny was just jonesing for the revenge she was bound to lay all over his face. But then, what could she do, really? The Tops was his pad, his joint, and she couldn't walk in here and take him out with whatever little bean-shooter she'd managed to smuggle in.

But if she let it slip to Swank that he might be looking to double-cross that square House? That would be a mighty big problem. Best to deal with the broad now.

He motioned for his guards to cool it and approached her slowly, cautiously. She didn't look to be in a hurry to castrate him, and he relaxed an inch. And the closer he got, the less threatening she seemed. She was tiny. Teeny tiny, or at the least small. Like five-foot nothing small. How the hell had this dame survived the Mojave? Girls like her, they shacked up with the first strongman they could find or they found work at places like the Atomic Wrangler or goddamn Gomorrah because if they didn't the Mojave just opened its mouth and ate them up.

When he reached her, she twisted round in her seat to watch him, just as weary. The look she sent him was pure malice, straight up _I hate your guts_ and he couldn't blame her. If he'd come face to face with the man who'd put a bullet in the side of his head, Benny'd be doing a hell of lot more than beckoning the fink with a slender finger.

_How in the hell—_

"Baby, you're looking mighty fine for a dead woman," he told her.

She smiled, all teeth. "Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated." She took another healthy gulp of the whisky bottle in her hand. It wasn't loosening her up any, if anything it was winding her tighter and tighter.

"We gonna keep this cool, right?" Benny asked, sliding into a seat beside her. She stiffened, but made no moves that set off his alarms. Girl wasn't a dumb bunny obviously, except for the part where she had walked into a casino armed with his boys just itching to follow his orders. "Smooth moves?"

She snorted. "I'm not an idiot. I didn't come here to kill you, Benny."

"I don't remember us ever exchanging names, baby doll, so where'd you pick up mine?" One of the Chairmen caught his eye over her shoulder. He motioned him away. Didn't want any more trouble than what he was getting with her butt parked at one of his tables. He needed things chill.

She reached into the pocket of her pants, or whatever they were—yeah what where they, Benny wondered, they looked like the bottoms to metal Fiend armor; how fucking weird was that?

The broad waved a familiar lighter underneath his nose. "Jessup says hi, by the way."

"And to I think I used to call that piece of tin my lucky charm." He went to snatch it from her, but she held it back. "Well, baby, if you didn't come to here to cash out what're you after?"

With all sullenness and seriousness she said, "Answers."

"Answers?" he repeated, just to make sure he heard right. When she nodded, he barked, "You dragged that pretty ass all the way over from Goodsprings for _answers_?"

"Someone goes to the trouble of setting me up, shooting me in the head, and then burying me in a shallow grave—I wanna know why."

"Girlie, if I'd been you I would've laid low—counted my blessings." He leaned closer and his knees bumped against hers. Yup, definitely metal. "This is the big times, kid. Things you don't want to mess with."

"I want to know about the Platinum Chip," she said boldly. "What's so damn important about it? It has to do with Mr. House, right?"

"Not here, baby," he said slowly, eyes darting toward the nearest Chairmen. The cat looked unaware.

"I'm not leaving until I know _everything_," she snapped. "I got a right."

"You got nothing," he told her and in her face he saw that she knew it; he also saw that she didn't give a flying fuck. "But alright, baby, we'll play it your way. We're gonna play this cool, dig? I don't need your curiosity killing this cat. Upstairs in an hour. You go first, and then I'll play it smooth out here for a bit and follow."

She frowned. "No deal. You go with me _now_ or I start shouting everything I know about the Platinum Chip and how you're trying to out House. From what I gather, not many of the other Families would take too kindly to it."

"You play 'em hard, baby. Would've never pegged you. Alright we scram together but play it smooth. I do all the chatting." He stood and offered her his hand. She stared. "What's a matter, doll, don't trust me?"

"About as far as I can throw you," she said but accepted his hand at last and slid off her stool with a little hop.

He guided her to the elevator. It was closing in on midnight and The Tops was in full swing. Benny loved it—the laughter in the air, the dames and cats jazzed up on a little too much cheap booze. The Tops, he thought, was _the_ joint and he didn't care what all those other squares said.

They passed one of his Chairmen and he brought her close to his hip. The broad gave an indignant huff and shoved. He bent close and hissed into her ear, "Smooth, honey baby, you remember?"

When she relented he said overtly to one of the floor managers, "The Ben-man's gonna bow out for a few hours, dig? You keep the place cooking for me, will ya?"

The clyde looked at the woman and then at Benny and winked. "Sure thing, boss. Everything down here'll be safe as kitten 'till you get back."

"That's what I want to here, palie."

He let go of her when they turned the corner. The broad didn't say anything, just fell in place behind him. Benny wasn't too sure he wanted this dame behind him, but he sauntered across the floor like nothing was a matter.

"You know, baby," he said when the elevator had closed behind them, "never did catch your name."

"Sigrun," she said with obvious reluctance.

"Sigrun? Now there's a name."

"Where are we going?" she demanded. She twisted her head away from him, that hair of her sliding off her neck. Benny leaned in closer when he caught sight of some ink on her neck. It was definitely a tattoo but it was messy, hesitantly done. Little symbols that curved into one another with uneven, splattered lines.

He touched it with two fingers and she jerked away, glaring at him.

"Just looking, honey baby," he told her. "That's some shitty ink if I ever saw it."

Her hand went to her neck, covering it. "It's none of your business."

Maybe not. No, definitely not but hell if he wasn't curious. That was a nasty tattoo. She had another one too, on her back. She swore a white tank that stopped above her naval, but he could only make out the end of it. Two pointed tips on either side of her back, and where her tank crossed over her shoulder blades there was a bit more, but not enough to get the whole picture. That, though, looked a hell of lot neater than what'd been stapled on her neck.

The elevator grinded to angry, screeching halt at the thirteenth floor. "The casaba awaits," he told her, stepping out. She fell into place behind him with an exasperated groan.  
-

When Sigrun stepped into Benny's suite she expected, well… more, she guessed. Not a standard living room with regular old sofas and a radio. She thought she'd see colors, bright colors, feet tall posters of singers from before the Great War. But this? This was just like any other room she'd ever crashed in, sans rubble and decay.

Go figure.

_"Play the guitar, play it again, my Johnny,"_ the radio sung.

"Depressing shit," Benny said before flicking it off. Sigrun turned antsy in the silence. She glanced down at her PipBoy and, wouldn't you know, her heart rate was bouncing from bad to really fucking bad. She needed to calm down.

Going with Benny to his room—going with him anywhere—had been a bad idea. It would've been a bad idea even if she had taken Boone. She didn't even know what you'd call this idea. It had moved into the stratosphere above bad.

She sat down on the old, red sofa and Benny reclined against the wall. Good. Distance was good.

"Well, you've got me, baby. Ask and you shall receive."

"Why?" Best place to start, she decided. The general why. Why did you shoot me, why did you need the chip, why are you bugging Mr. House, etc. etc. Just a whole bunch of whys piled up one after the other and the whole reason she'd raced from Goodsprings to New Vegas.

"That's a loaded question, honey baby, but okay here's the grit—Mr. House? That cat hid Vegas under his skirts when the bombs fell and now he thinks he owns it," Benny explained, his face tightening with each word. "Not to knock him down—the clyde did good forcing the Families into shape and giving Vegas law—but House ain't nothing more than a square and now all's he's doing is stunting the Strip. Vegas has gotta swing, dig? Gotta let it be and all House wants to do is dictate and play King of the Hill. He just doesn't get Vegas, baby."

"And you do?"

"Better than him," Benny said.

"So I nearly got killed because you want to have a pissing match with Mr. House."

Well, that just figured didn't it? Her luck was a lot worse than she thought. It should have been such an easy job. An eccentric gambler in Vegas wanted a fancy poker chip delivered no-muss no-fuss to the Strip. It hadn't sounded nearly as bad as the job she'd ran from New Canaan to Redding, right in the middle of some shootout the miners there were having with Raiders. That had been hell and she had thought—the Strip? No problem.

And everyone knew about Mr. House. She'd been living in New Reno and _everyone_ knew who Mr. House was. Big man in Vegas. He owned the place, she'd been told. Kept it on the straight and narrow, and dealt harshly with anyone who stepped out of line. Never came out of that Lucky 38 casino of his, but never needed to. Mr. House was like a god, couldn't see him but he was there and if you pissed him off he would fuck your shit up.

And Benny wanted to kill him. Benny wanted to kill a god and she'd wound up in the middle of it somehow.

Benny, who was now seated on the couch, looking annoyed. "Baby, it's a bit more complicated than that."

She resisted the urge to hit him, since that'd get him to sound the alarm and get herself all shot up again—a sensation she was looking to never repeat. "Not it's not. It really is just you playing a game of my-dick's-bigger with House and you dragged me into it."

He looked offended. Go figure. "Shooting you wasn't personal, girlie. It was just business."

_Real shame you got twisted up in this kid_, he'd told her in Goodsprings. And it was a shame. A real shame. She hadn't asked for this, had she? She didn't give a damn about power games and politics and the fucking Dam and the NCR. She'd been a hunter her whole life and she'd been taught keep your head down and your eyes on the prize.

"Well, now that you got what you came for," Benny said, going to stand. "Why don't you do us both a favor and jet?"

She really should, Sigrun thought. She had her answers—they sucked, but she had them. Kendo was right. Her notion of justice was as contrived and naïve as he claimed. Sigrun hadn't ever been young or naïve, not really, but maybe she was a bit more than she had thought if she had thought coming here would reveal some major, life-altering plot instead of just another asshole who didn't like being told what to do.

It would have been nice knowing she had murdered for _something_. But out here, in the Waste, in this world, did anyone really do anything for something anymore?

But still. Benny went to stand and she grabbed the cuff of his sleeve. What the hell, she thought, am I doing? She couldn't think of an answer and Benny tensed and his hand disappeared into his coat. She remembered his gun, the one he had shot her with in Goodsprings. But she kept on tugging until he sat back down.

Sigrun had made a lot of dumb decisions in her life, but this had to top them all. Benny hit the sofa and she just sort of climbed into his lap and kissed him. And her reasons for it? None at all. Just she had been shot for no good reason and he was right there. At that moment she probably would have kissed just about anyone. Kissing was something she knew, teeth and tongue and wet, wet lips, and it was something that could ground her, center her a little and she needed that.

Honestly, it had been something she'd needed since she'd woken up in Doc Mitchell's house with too much of her face new and an ugly scar at the side of her head and the taste of dirt still in her mouth. Maybe if Boone hadn't been so Carla this and fucking Legion that she would've pushed, but she hadn't. She'd been so focused; so damned focus on getting her answers, and now she had them and it made her all empty inside because apparently she'd been looking for something noble out of that night in Goodsprings.

Which was why, right now, she had her tongue half down Benny's throat, why her hips were straddling his, why her fingers were ruining his oh-so perfectly kept hair. She couldn't even think passed the way her mouth was angling over his; she was stuck. On loop, again and again—why did I even come here?

Benny yanked himself away. "Holy shit, baby, did that bullet scramble your brains?"

If it hadn't, Doc Mitchell's scalpel certainly had but before she could tell him that Benny pressed his mouth back up and kissed her. She jolted in his arms. His active participation in what she had started was enough to jerk her out of her surreal plain of existence. She remembered—specifically, she remembered he'd been holding the gun that night in Goodsprings, that he was the reason there was a scar at her temple.

Sigrun tried to jerk out of his arms. Benny had pressed his hands against the small of her back, holding her to him, and didn't let her go. She planted her hands against his chest and pushed. His response was to lay her flat on her back, mouth still on hers. His teeth sank into her lower lip, she nearly jumped out of her skin.

"No, no," she gasped, arching away from him. Benny sucked on her neck. Her body trembled, withered, came really close to giving up. "No, wait—no, stop."

He did, but only so he could level himself over her, hot breath on her mouth and his dark eyes glinting down at her. Crap, and double crap. She was in deep trouble here.

"Honey baby, you started it." His hand was on the curve of her hip suddenly, big and warm, bringing her flush against his body and his very obvious arousal. Oh crap. "But the Ben-man is going to finish it."

She didn't know what it was. Maybe it was nothing more than his warm body on top of her. Maybe it was some weird connection that had formed between them that night in Goodsprings, with her kneeling in that dirt and he looked down at her from above his gun. Whatever the reason, she reared up and kissed him again, deep and long, her tongue in his mouth, stroking his teeth and sinking even deeper as she hitched her hips against his and rubbed.

This is not happening, she thought, falling back into that surreal reality, this is not happening. Benny's hands slid up her stomach, under her shirt, and cupped her breasts. Her hand disappeared into his pants. Okay. This was happening.

Benny shuddered when she closed a hand around his cock, stroking. He pinched a nipple in retaliation and she gave a startled gasp.

"Okay, baby, let's move this party into the bedroom, dig?"

If she dug it or not, she didn't really have a chose. He just one armed scooped her up and carried her across the room. Her hand had to come out of his pants for that, and that seemed rather detrimental to what she wanted to happen here, but she made up for it by working at that the buttons of his coat, sucking hard on each patch of skin she revealed. He tasted like Vegas—glitter and glitz and a little lead.

She bounced hard when she was dropped onto the bed. Benny tugged at her pants, cursing when they held tight.

"Damn, how the fuck do you get these off?" he demanded of her. "It _is_ fucking Fiend armor."

It was. She'd had it specially made—meaning she scavenged around and all she'd been able to find were the bottoms, and beside she couldn't go around in Fiend armor; people would've been inclined to take shots at her.

"Here," she managed, panting. Her breasts were still tingling from where he'd been touching. "There's a latch." She pushed herself upward, Benny between her legs, and worked at the latches just on the inside of her pants. The tight belt popped free.

"Impressive," Benny said, and promptly yanked them off, boots and all. "I hope your built sturdy, you crazy board."

She was. But Sigrun didn't think that was going to save her. The only thing that was going to save her, right now, was kneeing Benny in the balls and making a break for it. That was the only way this could turn out well.

But what she did was help him slide off his coat, then slide her hands down the lean, jumping muscles of his stomach and teased the waistline of his pants before slipping one hand in. Basically, she did the opposite of everything she should have down.

Her mama had been right, after all.

* * *

So that's the end of chapter one. I imagine there's going to be around six/seven chapters, each about this long. The Mojave is such an amazing place, and I'm trying to expand it while keeping within the limits set by the mythos of the game. Let me know how that goes. As always, I would love critique and reviews. See you guys next time.


	2. conquest

standard disclaimer applies

this one of the chapters that gives the story it's M rating so if graphic sex makes you queasy you should avoid this part. Also, though I've put this under the category of "romance", bear in mind it's not your average meet-and-fall-in-love story. Benny had shot the courier in the head only a month ago, remember.

As always, critique welcomed and appreciated

* * *

_and then in the strange way things happen  
__their roles were reversed from that day  
__the hunted became the huntress  
__the hunter became the prey  
_-Patti Page

**ii. conquest**

Man oh man, Benny thought right before his brain fried completely, this broad was about ready to blow. He probably wasn't going to have to do a whole lot of anything to get her off. She was just primed for it.

She also had her hand down his pants and was literally giving him the best handjob of his life.

"Must be a courier thing," he said, his voice strained like every muscle in his damn body. "You're damn good at handling packages."

She didn't laugh, but her hand did tighten over his cock so the outcome was all good. He arched over her, hands on each side of her hips as she slowly stroked him, up and down, jumping from sharp, powerful caresses to languid, soft ones. And that was so good and put him into this perfect haze of pure sex, but it was kind of one-sided, her doing all the work, and Benny sort of prided himself on being the big man around town. Hell, the whores of Gomorrah came to him when they were looking for a good time. For free.

The broad wasn't as stacked as he usually preferred his dames—he liked them like that Gomorrah poster, big breasts and round ass—but there was _definitely_ something to be said about the high, perky charlies that pushed up against her shirt and the way her curves were lean lines merging into more lean lines. She was sleek, like a cat, and so fucking soft it was making his head spin.

He urged her onto her back and down she went, and he shucked off his pants with a hearty kick. He liked what he saw, her without her pants, but he was dying for a look at those charlies and he slid her tank over her head. It tangled somewhere around her wrists, holding her captive.

She had a necklace around her throat, made of beads and what looked like teeth. Deathclaw teeth, Benny thought on closer inspection, and that was wild. The girl had to be tough, but there was no way she'd killed a deathclaw.

When he went to pull it off, she stiffened. "No," she said. "Don't." He shrugged. Well, whatever kept her hot.

Benny stroked a hand appreciatorily down her body, from the underside of her chin, to the soft swell of her breasts and then circled her naval.

"You got one classy chasse there, girlie," he told her, bending his head down and stroking his tongue over her belly button. Her muscles went into wild spasms beneath his tongue, and he smiled against her hotly flushing skin.

His mouth went up, his hands went down. He climbed onto the bed beside her, and drew one breast into his mouth, sucking greedily. Meanwhile, his fingers slipped into her hot spot, where she was wet and very willing, legs falling open the minute he needed them to—and that was so 18-karats he felt drunk.

She groaned and thrashed, arching into his hand and into his mouth. "Please," she hissed. "I don't need—I _want_—"

Yeah, he had a pretty good idea what she wanted but he was starting to really dig the idea of teasing her. So he ignored her very blatant cries and sank his fingers deeper inside her and bit down on her nipple. She cried out, and the sound was like fucking music.

Something hit the ground with a dull thud. Glancing down told him it was the PipBoy she'd had strapped to her wrist, wherever the hell she'd gotten it from. She was no Vaultie; she tasted like rain and sunshine from where he was drawing her breast into his mouth—he'd played around with Sarah Weintrub a few times and she was all sterilization and cement. This broad was pure outside air.

There was a tug, hard on the back of his neck. Sigrun had finally managed to get her hands free and was now yanking impatiently at his tie, very obvious in her desires. _Fuck the foreplay_. He teased his fingers inside her one last time, before climbing up her body and straddling her.

"You ready for the tops?" he asked, breathlessly, working off his shirt and tie. Now he was part of the naked party too.

"Hurry," she demanded, arms fastening around his neck and drawing him down again. Her hips bucked against his, tucked his cock in between her thighs.

"Alright, alright—just trying to do this with a little finesse here, honey baby." He hooked an arm underneath her knee, and brought it up to her chest. "But if that ain't what the lady wants—well, the Ben-man'll just give her what she does."

She groaned when he pushed himself inside her. It was a little tighter than he'd thought, but it felt so damn _good_. The broad obviously felt the same, thrashing against him and groaning in a low, keening cry. He worked himself inside her, and cursed when he hit pay dirt. Yeah, this was the fucking ticket.

Benny suckled on that little, messy tattoo on her neck as his hips jackknifed. The girl beneath him panted, worked eagerly to meet him. She was already so damn close—and this was the sort of thing Benny loved to draw out.

She shuddered under him, fingers digging hard into the skin on his back—so hard he nearly yelped. Then he felt her closing up around his cock, like a hot, wet glove. He groaned, licked his way up her throat and jaw, and fastened his mouth over hers. That was it, the broad was done. She arched beneath, every muscle he could touch straining. Her free leg was wrapped around his waist, and her heel dug into the small of his back.

_Yes, yes yes,_ Benny thought because it felt so good. The girl had been working up to a very good explosion, and he was so damn glad he got to be inside her when she went off. Like a rocket. And while she was clutched him like a bur, he worked himself up good too; fast, hard strokes in and out as her muscles rippled around him.

Yeah, didn't take long for him to go off, either.  
-

When he woke up, he was aware of the sound of a chamber clicking. More specifically, his _fucking_ chamber. He knew Maria's sound like another man knew the sound of his hunger.

He lay on his stomach, sheet riding low on his hips and sweat from literally one of the best bouts of hey-hey he'd ever had cooling on his skin. And speaking of hey-hey, where'd that crazy broad get—

Oh, right. The chamber clicking. He turned his head from the pillow and meet Sigrun's eyes from where she sat, curled up and naked in a chair. Maria was in her hands, all gold and steel and lethality, but Maria didn't have any rounds in her. Her magazine was in the broad's hand, and the single left-over bullet. Maria's chamber was empty—it had been a while since that'd happened.

Obviously, she wasn't looking to off him, else she wouldn't have disarmed Maria. Maria was the best at what she did, and Sigrun had gotten a firsthand taste of that.

"You know, baby, I ain't into that real kinky shit," Benny said.

She didn't pay attention to him. She turned Maria in her hands, fingers moving over the lady carved onto the gun's handle with obvious meticulous precision. It was ironic—the lady's peaceful face and comforting, cupped hands on the handle of a powerful gun who had given more than one unlucky gent the big sleep. "Do you know who this is?" she asked quietly.

Benny did, but he wasn't in the mood to share. The first man he'd ever killed had given it to him, and the story of the lady on its handle. It was the first real taste of faith Benny had ever gotten, as a snot-nosed punk completing his first kill and Bingo watching on with pride. It was the sort of thing that stayed with you.

"I've seen her a few times," Sigrun said, surprising the hell out of him. Old-world churches just weren't the bees' knees these days, and the icons they had worshipped even less so. "The Lady of Guadalupe, I think."

That wasn't her only name. Benny had been partial to Maria.

"Listen, honey baby, you gonna sit in the chair and play twenty questions for a while longer? 'Cause I could always catch some z's. If not, get that ass of yours back in this bed."

He honestly hadn't expected her to stand up and do as he asked—he'd just wanted to stop her damn questions. But Sigrun stood and slid back into bed with him. He caught the hint of her ink on her shoulder blade as she did so and, curiosity loving cats, he flipped her onto her stomach.

Wings. Fucking angel wings. They were stylized, geometric lines darting into one another, arching over each shoulder to make the tops, and ending in sharp little points where her hips started. But they were wings.

He whistled low between his teeth. "Who gave you this, baby? This is some talented work."

She tried to roll away, but he wouldn't let her, pressing his hand down into the small of her back and holding her still. His fingers traced the black lines of her wings and she shuddered beneath his whisper-light touch.

"You didn't pick this up in some dive out in the Waste, baby," he told her and continued when she was stone silent, "You're forgetting the Families ain't all polish and pizzazz—I know tribal ink when I see it."

She turned her head to give him an unhappy look, and Benny pulled the sheet off his hips to show her his. Linked chains that ran up his hip to the underside of his armpit. Oh, it had hurt so fucking bad, especially when the inker had gotten to his ribs, but hell—Benny had been fifteen and so sure it was worth it. Everyone in the tribe got those linked chains and Benny hadn't thought about their meaning until he was older and Bingo wanted nothing to do with House's offer. Those links meant you followed the leader.

"I ain't exactly on the up and up with all the tats they slap on tribals these days, but I don't think this is from around here. My complements to the artist, though."

"I was fourteen," the dame said quietly. "They gave me the tattoo and my name. Sigrun—she was a valkyrie, you know? An angel of justice." She snorted.

He'd heard about those tribes. The Great Khans didn't hand out names unless you passed their initiation rites, which basically translated to being able to get the crap kicked out of you and walking away afterwards. But this dame wasn't Khan, or no fucking way would Jessup have buried her that night.

The Deathclaw teeth and beads necklace made a lot more sense now too. She hadn't killed a Deathclaw, probably hadn't been within fifteen feet of one, but someone in her tribe had. Tribes had a habit of passing its junk down, making it into some sort of heirloom.

"What they'd call you, before?"

Another snort. "Honey. My mama wasn't exactly the creative type."

"Honey?" That fit her better than Sigrun. Sigrun sounded like some big badass bade who could kill you with a flick of her wrist. Honey sounded like this broad in his bed, small and soft. "Mind if I call you that from now on, my Honey baby?"

"Do it and see what happens," she said, with obvious intent. Benny relented. She'd gotten the drop on him before, no sense letting her do it again.

"What are you going to do now?" Sigrun asked, arms folded in front of her and chin propped up on them. She was looking at the headboard.

"Probably best if you're not in the know, pussycat," he told her.

"Last time I wasn't in the know, I ended up with a bullet in my head, remember?"

"I'm doing you a favor here, doll. Why don't you sit pretty and let the Ben-man do what he's got to do?"

She turned her head and glared at him. "I don't sit pretty," she snapped.

He curled a hand around the soft cushion of her ass and she jerked. "You sit damn pretty, baby."

She nudged him with her elbow, but Benny grabbed her and tucked her against his side, arms around her waist and head nestled against the curve of her hip. She smelt a lot better than you'd figure, given she looked like she was covered in about a year's worth of desert. She smelled sort of like fresh rain, maybe, or something equally poetic.

"Anyway, doll, let's catch some z's and see about going for another round in a bit." He smiled against her skin. "I ever tell you, you're a real ring a ding broad? You wore me out, baby."  
-

Well, he was gone. And was she surprised? No, Sigrun decided, she certainly wasn't. She'd known, deep down, that Benny would hightail it the minute he saw daylight. If she hadn't been so caught up in a sexual haze or whatever, she might've seen it coming.

And the letter, the one she still had downloaded into her PipBoy? It basically told her to prowl around the Strip and wait for him to get back. Yeah right. She hadn't come to him to be his moll. She'd come for answers—and then apparently sex, but even the sex hadn't been planned. And, wow, the sex. How had that even happened?

Sigrun didn't like to lose control, but she had lost it that night. She'd needed something to cling to because she'd suddenly been adrift and Benny had been right there and—fuck she was messed up.

"Where did Benny go?" she asked.

The Securitron—the Yes Man, he called himself—gave a helpless shrug of his robotic shoulders, his display face still in the vaguely disturbing smile. "He sure was in a hurry this morning when I saw him head for his secret underground elevator!"

"Yes," Sigrun said, "but where did he _go_?"

"Well, if I had to guess I'd say to Fortification Hill, that's where Mr. House keeps a large underground bunker likely filed with some sort of advanced security device. Controlling that will likely let you control New Vegas, you know!"

Yes, she did know. She'd already been informed of Benny's plan to undermine Mr. House and take New Vegas for himself, or for the Chairmen at least. The Yes Man had been very helpful, letting her know that if _she_—by any off chance—wanted to take Vegas for herself she'd could do the same thing Benny planned to do—get the Chip, get into House's bunker, kill House, and take over Vegas.

God, what she was doing even talking to this robot? She'd gotten what she wanted and now it was time to go. What she should not be doing was listening to Benny's Yes Man outline the best way to name herself Queen of New Vegas. She didn't want that. Power never sat well in her hands.

"Fortification Hill," Sigrun repeated. "Isn't that where Caesar's Camp is located?"

"Indeed, it is! Boy, you sure know your way around the Mojave! I hope Benny's got enough stealth boys to get into House's bunker or Caesar will certainly kill him—isn't that sad?"

The Yes Man didn't seem to think so. Sigrun blinked, took in a breath, steadied herself and said, "Alright. I'm leaving."

"Gosh, really?" The Yes Man called after her. "That's too bad, I really enjoyed talking with you. Well, come visit soon, okay?"

Sigrun's answer was to shut the door behind her.

When she left Benny's room one of his Chairman gave her a conspicuous wink. She glared at him on her way over to the elevator. Well, her goal might not have been to end up as Benny's moll but that was probably the rumor circulating already—if the looks were anything to go by.

Below, at the casino level, the Tops was still grooving. It wasn't as loud as it had been the night before. Early afternoon wasn't conductive to gambling, but there were still some clients at the tables, determined to turn their fates around.

Benny's right hand man—what was his name? Swerve? Swan? _Swank_—caught up with her just after she made it to the main lobby.

"Hey, where'd the boss man run off to?" he demanded of her.

Sigrun barely spared him a glance and wouldn't have answered him at all if he hadn't grabbed her by the elbow with the very obvious message that she wasn't going anywhere until he got what he wanted. She was in no mood to answer anyone's questions, but she was even less inclined to start a brawl, even if Swank had no idea how hard he'd go down.

"How am I supposed to know?" she asked, shaking her arm free. "Isn't he _your_ boss? Shouldn't he be telling you these things?"

"Yeah, but babycakes, you were the last one to see him." There was a very lewd undertone to that sentence that Sigrun didn't particularly care for but well—it was kind of true, wasn't it?

"Well, I don't know where he is so you'll just have to—" She was spared from further explanation by the sound of commotion near the front desk. And not the normal sort of commotion like a gambler with too much booze upset over his losing streak. She couldn't see what it was, buts she knew what trouble sounded like. Both she and Swank headed for it.

"—and I said from my cold, dead hands." That was definitely Craig Boone, 1st Recon Sniper and Legionnaire Slaughterer. He stood just in front of the Tops' main doors, arms crossed over his chest, and looking about ready to take down the whole Tops Casino if he didn't get what he wanted, nowish.

"Ain't no gets in the club packing what you're packing, pally," said the greeter, stance giving the very clear message that he was just as willing as Boone to dish out the pain—only they didn't really know what Boone was capable of. Sigrun did, and she rushed to defuse the situation before it went off.

"It's okay, we're leaving," she said, grabbing Boone a bit roughly by his arm and hauling him to the door. Boone went, but not before sending a last, parting look at the greeter over his shoulder. ED-E whirled above their heads, making greeting clicks.

"Come back anytime, babydoll!" Swank called after her. "We'll show you the tops—just like Benny would've liked."

Sigrun didn't color under Boone's scrupulous glare, but it took a lot her self control. They stopped by the closest bench, where Boone began to systematically go through his belongings—he'd never really trusted the Vegas crowd, he told her once, nothing but swindlers and thieves. Sigrun crossed her arms over her chest and wondered what the odds were that Boone wouldn't ask her what the hell she had been doing in the Tops all night long—or who.

Actually, very high. She and Boone got along, but only because they had an understanding. She'd helped take out Jeannie Crawford, but she hadn't asked for any other information other than the fact that the old woman in Novac had sold Boone's wife and unborn child to Legion slavers. That was enough for her to sign on to any assassination attempt, but when he said Carla Boone was dead she had taken his word for it—she didn't ask how he knew, why he knew, and when he told her shut up about Bitter Springs, she had. In return, Boone didn't ask about the tattoos on her back, on her neck, didn't ask about the Platinum Chip, and hopefully wouldn't ask about Benny.

From her perch on the bench, New Vegas looked slightly less impressive in dull morning light. The debris and cracked sidewalks, the NCR troopers blinking owlishly in the light, didn't add much to the city's supposed mystique. The atomic bombs hadn't destroyed New Vegas, but the world that had emerged after the Great War had certainly tried. If it wasn't for Mr. House, New Vegas would have easily been just another empty city, a morbid painting to a world no one could remember.

"Sigrun—" Boone began.

"Did you wait for me in the Tops all night?" she asked, cutting off his question. Boone took a moment, saw that she was obviously not in the sharing mood and let it drop.

"No," he said. "We took a room at Vault 21."

She sighed. "How much did that set us back?" Together they had only managed scrounge just enough caps to get past the Securitrons at the Strip's gate.

"Enough," Boone said. "Then Cass bought whisky."

Sigrun sighed. The former caravan driver had warned her early on that if Sigrun wanted her to tag along she was going to have to be willing to front some caps for whisky. Sigrun didn't mind downing a bottle or two—though scotch would always be her preference—but Cass drank the stuff like it was water.

"I take it we don't have the Platinum Chip?" Boone said. When she didn't answer, since it was so very obvious she didn't have the fucking Chip, he continued, "What happened in there?"

God, she didn't know. It had been sex, hadn't it? Her and Benny in his room. But it had been more than that, more than sex—or maybe it hadn't. She didn't know. The whole night was in stark technicolor, from Benny's breath on her skin and the way his had been surprisingly dusky to the tribal tattoo on his hip—she could remember it all. But hell if she had knew what it had meant.

"When I figure it out, I'll let you know," she said, and was only half joking.

"Well, what are we going to do now?" Boone asked.

Cut and run was her first reaction. Why stick around? She was just a courier who'd had some serious bad luck. She didn't want to get caught in power plays between the Strip, the NCR and the fucking Legion. Justice was her weakness and Sigrun knew that if she got too close she wouldn't be able to walk away. And how could she solve this massive clusterfuck, anyhow? The Legion would burn, the NCR would conquer, and Mr. House would scheme. It would never change. If she had any brains, she'd haul ass and never look back.

But then she thought—the Kings, Goodsprings, the Followers of the Apocalypse. Good people trying to make sense of a really bad situation; people who'd gone out of their way to help her and people she'd helped. Could she really just walk away from them? They'd be destroyed by whoever came out on top at the end of this. Swallowed alive. Maybe it was presumptuous—no, Sigrun thought, it was _extremely_ presumptuous—to assume she could change anything, but how could she _not_ try?

Sigrun sighed. Kendo had always been right, especially about her. Little girl, you love yourself a good cause, he had said. It hadn't been a compliment.

"Let's just meet up with Cass," she said at last. "Cool our heels for a bit and see where the day takes us."

Boone stiffened suddenly, his impassive face going even more unreadable and stony, and Sigrun knew _exactly_ where the day was going to take her. She followed Boone's gaze to what had gotten his ire up.

Even without the red uniform and dog helmet, you could make him out of the crowd. He exuded the essence of _not one of us._ His face was pointed; sharp angry angles and his dark eyes were cold and hard—it reminded her bit of a dead fish. When she'd met him in Nipton a certain calm had come over her. A kind of calm that you got when you knew you were going to die and nothing could stop it—she hadn't felt it in Goodsprings Cemetery; every instinct inside her had been primed to survive. But seeing him had been like seeing the end of the line. Nothing could have stopped him that day in Nipton, the fire burning red hot and the men strung up on their crosses, if he had wanted her dead. It hadn't mattered that there had been seven other Legionnaires surrounding him. They had been little more than ambient noises. It had been him—Caesar's special dog. He would tear out your throat if you were stupid enough to show it. She'd walked away that day, but only because the beast had had his fill.

Vulpes Inculta. Head of the Frumentarii.

She angled herself between Boone and the Legionnaire. He looked like your standard New Vegas traveler—pantsuit and all. If Boone took a shot him here there was no telling what trouble they'd get in with the Securitrons watching.

"News of your deeds have reached my lord," Inculta said, his voice scrapping against Sigrun's skin like sandpaper. "And he desires your presence at his camp on Fortification Hill. It would benefit you to make your way there."

He tried to pass to her a heavy medallion on a silver chain. Sigrun reluctantly took it. It felt heavy and too cold in her palm, like how death had felt before Doc Mitchell had patched her up.

"This is the Mark of Caesar. With it, your crimes have been forgiven," He was obviously referring to Nelson. She, Boone, and Cass had gone in masked and killed every Legionnaire they had been able to get their hands on, but who knew if one of them had managed to get news back to Fort Hill about them? "This is Caesar's highest honor and will not be bestowed twice."

She turned the medallion over in her hand, considering the best way to tell him to fuck off and to, more specifically, die in a fire. Inculta could read that easily in her face and a flash of annoyance slithered through his eyes.

"It would also interest you to know," he said, "that the man you seek is heading towards Caesar's camp as we speak. Soon Caesar will be in possession of the Platinum Chip."

Benny was heading to Fort Hill? She remembered that the Yes Man had said something along those lines, but she had been too busy trying to figure out how to get the hell out of dodge for it to really register.

"If this is a trap," she told Inculta. "I'm taking you all down with me." And she meant it. She was tribal through and through—an eye for an eye.

Inculta didn't look threatened. "If Caesar wanted you dead, you would have been dead already," he pointed out and, Sigrun admitted, he was probably right. She'd seen Legion patrols in the Mojave and, yes, she couldn't have taken them down without getting herself taken down too. And Caesar didn't have enough loyalty toward his men to worry about causalities.

She pocketed the Mark. "Walk away slowly," she said. "Now."

Inculta inclined his head and, true to his form, almost immediately melded in with the crowd. Her last glimpse of him was when he brushed by Cass's shoulder. And then he was gone, just another faceless gambler in a sea of vice.

"What was that all about?" Cass asked, her words slightly slurred. Her cheeks had those bright pink splotches that had gotten her that namesake.

Boone didn't answer. He was looking at Sigrun. Underneath his sunglasses, his eyes were harsh. He might have let her walk away, before, tossed the whole experience up as one big mistake. But now? Now Sigrun could deliver him the means to Caesar's head. He wouldn't let her walk away anymore.

She sighed and rubbed her temples. "Nothing." She nodded to Boone. "Mr. House wants an audience, as I understand it. Why don't we go see what he's after?"  
-

Benny hadn't gotten as far as he would have hoped, but how the hell was he was supposed to know that those squares would take so long heading upriver? His plan had been to get as far into Caesar's Camp o' Murders as he could and then huff it the rest of the way to the bunker. It would've been kittens once he'd gotten inside. Caesar kept the Legion under his thumb because not a one of them had the sense of the real world. They didn't know a pressure cooker from a sensor module. If they followed Benny down into House's bunker, some of them might get to wondering and Caesar obviously didn't like wondering.

But his last stealth boy had worn out just as they docked. He'd made a break for it, but that fink Lucius had knocked in his kneecaps with the blunt end of his machete.

Looks like its endsville for me, Benny had thought just before they had started wailing on him. A ballistic fist had broken his jaw and the screams that came after gurgled wetly in Benny's chest. A sandaled foot was pressed down and down into his ribs and curling away from it just seem to make it worse.

"That's enough," one of Caesar's mutts said. "Take him to Caesar to be dealt with."

Oh boy. A meeting with the Big Daddy himself. This would go well, Benny imagined. If well meant a crucifixion in his immediate future.

They dragged him by his arms up the hill. One of his shoulders was dislocated and he screamed the whole way up, though it was muffled by all the blood in his mouth. He about drowned in his own blood, but he could barely swallow let alone work up the strength to spit it out.

"You broke his jaw?" There was suddenly searing, shooting agony on his chin and it jerked Benny out of the blackness he'd unwittingly sunken into. Thanks a ton for that, pally, he thought. "Give him a stimpack. I need him to talk."

He felt the prick of a Med-X at the corner of his shoulder, and then the long needle of a stimpack administered directly to his aching jaw. The drug numbed him over, and it took another hour or so for the bones in his jaw to stitch themselves back together.

All the while the big boss man himself waited patiently on his throne, like he had all the time in the world to waste. Maybe he did. All Benny knew was that looking at him reclining there made him want to go ape. He didn't want this clyde's grimy little hands anywhere near his favorite girl. Vegas deserved a hell of a lot better than the fire Caesar'd give it. Hell, Benny'd sell it over to the NCR before he let Caesar breath in a whiff of her perfumed air.

Caesar didn't look like you'd expect the top dog of the Legion to look like. He was middle-aged, balding, and short. Like an average Joe on Vegas' street corner. How the fuck was this the cat threatening Vegas? He looked sort of like a grandpa. Threatening didn't even come close to matching up with him.

Caesar stood from his throne, walked over to Benny. Without any preamble, he removed House's prized Platinum Chip from its place in the pocket at Benny's heart.

"Would you care to tell me what this is?" Caesar asked, cool as a cucumber.

"Honestly? Not really inclined to, pal." Benny shrugged his shoulders.

"That's fair enough." He stood and looked to his bruiser of a bodyguard. "Lucius will see that you give us what we want."

Benny was sure he would. He wasn't delusional. He knew he could be broken, and the Legion broke people the best. He'd talk, he'd give them what they wanted. Eventually. But that didn't mean he couldn't put up a hell of a fight, right? He was a Chairman—former Boot Rider—and he'd always been tougher than he'd looked. Spry little bastard, Bingo had called him. And then Benny had put a knife in his throat.

* * *

the tribes of the Fallout work fascinate me, a lot more than the NCR does. The workings of Sigrun's tribe will be expanded on slightly, as will what exactly forced her to leave her tribe. I imagine her tribe to be a mesh of the Great Khans and the Daughters of Hecate from the cancelled Van Buren project. I'm trying to make this seem "lore" friendly so let me know if it veers too far from the mark and, of course, if Benny suddenly starts seeming non-Benny tell me. I'm trying to keep everyone as IC as possible in a Fallout game.

**reviews**

**J. P. Tuesday****:** nice to meet you anon OP! Obviously a big thanks goes out to you since you got me out of my writing rut. I had planned just a small 500 word or so ficlet for you, and because I love f!Courier/Benny and the Chairman of the Board. Let's keep this grooving, hey?

**ANON:** thank you so much. Here's hoping you continue to enjoy it.

**Harumi Kitomi****:** thank you! I hope you like where this story ends up going.


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